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Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Since the release of City of Mages, I've been doing the prep work for the next revision of For the Wildings
(the 6th and final book of Daughter of the Wildings) and I've also been
getting back in the habit of writing new words (almost) every day. Part
of that has been doing writing exercises from the book Self-Editing for Fiction Writers,
by Renni Browne and Dave King. One of the exercises was to take a
description of a neighborhood given in the book and write a scene
showing the neighborhood. I started with that exercise, and it kind of
took on a life of its own... Not my usual kind of thing, but I hope you
enjoy it.

Roma Flowers http://www.freeimages.com

Rescue From Suburbiacopyright 2015 Kyra Halland

"Turn left from Route 9W in six hundred feet," the fembot voice of the GPS said.

Left?
Sandra thought. She didn't think that was what the directions had said.
But going 65 miles an hour down the highway with a cement mixer
crawling up her back end was no time to fumble for the sheet of paper
with the directions on it. She had programmed the address into the GPS,
so she would just follow that and if it didn't seem right, she would
check the directions when she found a place to stop.

The turn
came up quickly. She veered into the turn lane without having time to
slow down, and the cement truck blasted past her. She waited while the
traffic coming the other way passed, then made her turn.

Woods
lay between where she had turned and where the business park she was
looking for was presumably located. Sandra drove into the shelter of the
trees --

Then, in what seemed an eyeblink, she found herself not
in the driveway of a large industrial business park but on a winding
suburban street. Maybe the business park was beyond this neighborhood,
if she kept driving straight through.

The street she was on
curved and met a second street that branched off, also at a curve. She
slowed down and looked at the street signs, hoping to see Commerce
Street. No such luck; she was at the intersection of Mars Court and
Mercury Terrace. She braked for a moment and considered; she thought she
wanted to go north. Mars Court, the street -- excuse me, court -- she was on continued curving around to the east, but Mercury Terrace seemed to go north.

She
turned and followed Mercury Terrace north, then it angled
west-northwest. It turned into Venus Lane, Uranus Place -- the kids
probably had fun with that one -- and Pluto Circle, then turned into
Mars Court again and met another street at a sharp T angle. Jupiter
Landing, the new street was. She turned right, hoping to get going
straight north again, but Jupiter Landing made a hairpin curve. She
followed it all the way around to get back to Mars Court, but right
about where she thought Mars Court should be, Jupiter Landing met with
Jupiter Court at about a thirty degree angle.

She was lost.
Sandra stopped the car and looked around. The streets all looked the
same. And so did the houses -- miles and miles of off-white stuccoed
suburban sameness. Except the flock of pink flamingos in front of the
house at the corner of the Landing and the Court added a nice individual
touch. The compass on the GPS unit said she was facing south. Which
seemed odd; if it was still morning, shouldn't the sun be on the other
side of the sky from where it was? Either she was really turned around,
or the GPS was messed up. Or both.

One thing was clear, she
wasn't going to be able to just drive straight through the subdivision
to the office park. The only thing to do was to backtrack to the highway
and find the right exit this time. And ignore the GPS.

Sandra
reached over to the passenger seat for the directions she'd scrawled on
the back of the envelope while she was talking to the HR person on the
phone. As she thought, she should have taken a right turn off the
highway. But there hadn't been a right turn where she'd turned; it was a
T-intersection. The turn must be farther up. Oh well; she'd left the
house in plenty of time, anticipating trouble finding her destination.
With any luck, she should still make it to the interview on time.
Fortunately, she had the phone number of the woman she'd talked to in
her cell phone. She pushed call; the chipper, cheery voice of the HR
assistant answered.

"Hi," Sandra said. "It's Sandra Benson. I
have an interview at 11:30; I'm having a little trouble finding your
office, but I should be there on time. I just wanted to let you know, in
case I am a few minutes late."

"Benson..." the HR woman said.
"Let me see, I'll put a note on your file, just in case... I'm so sorry,
Ms. Benson, there seems to be some sort of mistake. We don't have you
scheduled for an interview today... Or any day this week."

Sandra
huffed out an exasperated sigh, holding the phone away so that the HR
person wouldn't hear her impatience. "It's right here on my calendar,"
she said, looking at the envelope where she'd scribbled down the
information. "Tuesday, October 7, Mega-Lite Industries, interview with
Ms. Valance."

"Well, then, I do apologize," the HR woman said.
"It must have fallen through the cracks. I'll go ahead and put you on
her schedule, and she'll work you in today, since you've already gone to
all the trouble of driving all the way out here."

"Thank you," Sandra said. "I should be there soon."

She
hung up, turned the car, and began backtracking. Now that she had
noticed the pink flamingos in the yard of the house she had stopped in
front of, other yard ornaments came to her attention. A Virgin Mary in a
half-buried bathtub shrine, a basketball hoop, a garden gnome, a
birdbath, a politcal sign for last year's election, an army of garden
gnomes, a Camaro up on blocks, a flock of pink flamingos...

Darn.
She was back at the intersection of Jupiter Court and Jupiter Landing.
How had she gotten here? She could have sworn she had turned the other
way, back onto Mercury Terrace. She called up the map app on her phone
and had the GPS find her location; it showed her in the middle of an
expanse of emptiness. Apparently this subdivision had been built since
the last time the street maps were updated.There were no signs of
life on the streets; probably everyone was at work. Only one thing left
to do. She Googled on her phone for a taxi company, and called the first
number that came up on the results.

"Galaxy Transportation Company, how may I help you?"

"Hi,
I'm at --" She checked for a house number on the pink flamingos house
"-- 709 Jupiter Landing. I've got my car and it's working fine, but I
can't find my way out of this neighborhood and I'm going to be late for a
job interview. If one of your drivers knows his way around here and can
lead me back out to 9W, I'd really appreciate it. I'll pay double
whatever the fare would be."

"Certainly, ma'am," the cheery voice
on the other end said. The connection was funny, from way out here in
the boondocks; the sound was slightly metallic. It was lucky she could
get a cell signal at all, Sandra thought. "You aren't the first person
to get lost in that neighborhood. We'll send someone right out."

"Thank
you so much." The rush of relief and gratitude was more than Sandra had
expected. She hadn't realized it until now, but she had a really
strange feeling about this neighborhood. It was too empty, too new, too
weird. Going to a job interview actually sounded like fun in comparison
to being stuck here.

She looked at her watch, hoping it wouldn't
take the taxi too long to get out there. She got out of the car to
stretch; the neighborhood might be empty, but it didn't look dangerous,
and it was broad daylight, so it should be okay if she walked around a
bit while she waited. The day was bright and held some summer heat that
just wouldn't let go.

Then, somehow, the light seemed brighter.
She squinted; the brightness hurt her eyes. A chill rushed over her,
weird considering the heat and how strong the sun was. She turned to go
back to her car, saw at the heart of the bright light something shiny
and metallic hanging in the sky, far too large to be floating... Right
before the light enveloped her completely and the world fell away, she
saw the lettering on the ship, Galaxy Transportation.

At least she wasn't lost in suburban hell any more, was her last thought.

The regular price is $3.99, but through this weekend you can get it for only 99 cents! I'm
still waiting for it to go live at Barnes & Noble and Google Play,
but that should be within a day or so, or maybe less. Over the next week
I'll get the paperback edition formatted, then that will be available a
couple of weeks later, after I receive the proof copy in the mail and
approve it.

City of Mages is the next-to-last book in the series. The last book, For the Wildings,
is by far the longest book in the series, so it's going to take a
little longer to get it ready to go, especially with the holidays coming
up the next couple of months. I'm still thinking about what comes after
that; I realized that the second project space in my brain has been
occupied by a fanfiction I wrote for NaNoWriMo a couple of years ago,
that I'm still editing. I'm almost done with that, so I'm going to
finish it up and get ready to start posting it so I can move on to
something else. The Healing Tree (dumb working title) really wants to
get written, and I've got a bunch of other projects waiting to be
planned or revised. A follow-up series to Daughter of the Wildings is
definitely on the list :-)

Friday, October 16, 2015

Wow, I just realized I haven't been posting much lately. I've been deep in edits on City of Mages, and I'm on to the final proofreading. Look for it next week! To make sure you don't miss the release announcement, sign up for my email alerts. I won't share your information, and I also won't spam you.

Also,
this week I'm the featured author in the Paranormal, Fantasy, Dystopia,
and Romance Readers, Writers, and Reviewers Goodreads group. I want to
thank these nice people who are helping promote me this week - make sure
you go check them out!

Monday, October 12, 2015

1. Tell us a little about yourself.
I
have always been a voracious reader and writing seemed to be a natural
extension of that. I love stories, whether they are written word or on
the screen. I’m a runner too, which came as something of a surprise to
me, but it’s a great way to bash out plot ideas.

2. When did you start writing, and why?
As
a teenager, I would be frustrated by novel endings that I didn’t like
and I would reimagine these all the time. I would have these little
movies playing in my head too, but it wasn’t until a friend showed me a
story she had written that I decided to start writing myself. I was
twelve. I started writing YA as a teen and never stopped. Although I do
have a couple of adult novels on the back burner.

3. What do you write, and why? What do you enjoy about what you write?
At the moment I primarily write YA, as that’s how I started and I like YA.
I work with teenagers, so I listen to what they have to say about the
fiction aimed at them and I try to consider that in my stories. For
instance, many girls want the romance, but without the weak female
character that often goes with that. I enjoy writing stories where the
romance is important, but the heroine is more important. My heroines are independent and the guys they end up with are awesome, not ‘alpha’, regardless of their age!

4. What is your latest book or series? Any forthcoming books?Talent is my first self-published novel and the sequel, Fire,
will be out before Christmas. These will be the only two novels in the
Talents series. I have some other projects I want to work on, including a
novella on revenge bullying.

5. "Welcome To My Worlds": Tell us a little about the world of your latest book or series.
The
world of Talents is the world we live in, with a variety of ‘talented’
individuals. Telepaths, empaths, locator talents and future seers...just
as every person is unique, so are the talents. The Talent world is, in
many ways, in its infancy; these novels show the starting point for a
new society that brings all the Talents together.

6. Introduce us to some of your characters. What do you like about them?
In Talent,
we meet Libby. She’s ambitious, loyal and tenacious. I like her, as
she’s not afraid of a challenge - she faces a lot of them! Her best
friend, Kelly, also interested me as she started out happy and
vivacious, but the world they live in has its own pressures. As she
grows up, she has to work out her place in that world. It’s an
interesting and often difficult journey that I think we can all relate
to. Kelly is the heroine of Fire [book 2].

7. A fun fact you would like your readers to know about you or your book.Talent
took 2 years to finish because I didn’t think I could, or should. I met
someone who writes and blogs, and she loves what she does. She inspired
me to give it a go. Once I made my decision, the book was finished in 3
months.

Talent:
Libby didn't expect to have her perfectly planned life uprooted half way through Sixth Form.
Starting
a new school is the least of her worries, however, even though the
natives aren't too friendly and the boy she has an instant crush on
looks at her as though she's his worst enemy.
With her parents acting strangely, Libby starts to think that their big move might tear the family apart.
Then her mum disappears and Libby finds herself thrust into a world she never dreamed existed.

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Today I'm happy to welcome Eleanor Webster to the blog, to celebrate the release of her first novel, No Conventional Miss.

1. Tell us a little about yourself.I
live in a small town in northern Canada with my husband and two
daughters. In addition to human neighbours, I also have bears and deer
which frequent my backyard. One bruin, in fact, broke my very fine
cherry tree.

I am a lifelong learner and have a Masters degree in
educational psychology and undergraduate degrees in creative writing
and history. I use my writing to explore my fascination with the past
and am thrilled to announce the publication of my first Harlequin
Historical, No Conventional Miss.

2. When did you start writing, and why?I
attempted my first novel when I was in grade 5. It featured a stowaway
on a freighter. However, I lost interest in her somewhere in the middle
of the Pacific Ocean.

As to why I write – I write largely
because I am too old to play with Barbie dolls – plus their clothes are
too tricky and I always lost the shoes.

3. What do you write, and why? What do you enjoy about what you write? I
write romance and I aim to entertain. I work in a field of psychology
which can result in heart-breaking situations and I write to create a
place of ‘happy endings’ which are not always duplicated in real life.
I enjoy creating engaging and somewhat quirky characters.

For example, in No Conventional Miss
Rilla is an inventor and builds a butter churn which succeeds in
flooding the dairy. Lady Wyburn, another character is kind, lovely and
slightly ditzy in a very smart way. For me, Lady Wyburn is that impish
inner voice which notes the inanities of everyday life and enables one
to cope with humor to life’s vicissitudes.

4. What is your latest book or series? Any forthcoming books?My latest book is No Conventional Miss.
It is debuting today, Oct. 1,through Harlequin Historicals. I have a
two book contract with Harlequin so a second book will be released at
some point... It is set slightly earlier with the backdrop of the French
Revolution.

5. "Welcome To My Worlds": Tell us a little about the world of your latest book or series.No Conventional Miss
is set in Regency England. I have always loved the Regency Period
because it depicts a society poised for change. The inventions of the
Industrial Revolution are emerging, bringing with them the anticipation
of societal transformation.

Rilla has a zest for innovation and
invention. However, she is also plagued by moments of second sight and
paranormal ability. Both aspects of her personality are not acceptable
within the context of her society..

6. A fun fact you would like your readers to know about you or your book.My
favourite character, Lady Wyburn, is based on my conception of a
grandmother I never met but with whom I identify. She was ditzy in a
smart, delightful way. Apparently, she once set the veil of her hat on
fire with a cigarette. I’d do something like that. In fact, my peers
strongly advocated that I NOT take up smoking. Second interesting fact, I
am a hand-talker. I can’t help it. Once when working with teenagers
they timed me to see how long I could talk without moving my hands. I
never made it past 30 seconds.

No Conventional Miss:She's always been different…

Amaryllis
Gibson is an unlikely debutante. She favors fact over fashion, cares
not for "proper" conversation and is haunted by ghostly visions which
could land her in the madhouse! Marriage is definitely the last thing on
Rilla's mind…

But when she's caught in a compromising position
with Viscount Wyburn, suddenly she finds herself betrothed! And worse,
his powerful presence only increases her visions. By shedding light on
the viscount's past, can Rilla gain his trust and win him round to her
more…unconventional traits?

About the Author:Eleanor
Webster loves high-heels and sun, which is ironic as she lives in
northern Canada, the land of snowhills and unflattering footwear.
Various crafting experiences, including a nasty glue-gun episode, have
proven that her creative soul is best expressed through the written
word.​ Eleanor lives with her husband and has two daughters. She
is a lifelong learner and is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in
psychology. Eleanor has a masters degree in educational psychology and
an undergraduate degree in history and creative writing. She loves to
use her writing to explore her fascination with the past.

Other

Kyra Halland: Welcome to My Worlds is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

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About Me

Kyra Halland has always loved fantasy. She has also always loved a good love story. Years ago, as a new stay-at-home mom, she decided to combine those two loves - like chocolate and peanut butter! - by writing the kinds of romantic fantasy novels she wanted to read.
Complicated, honorable heroes; strong, smart, feminine heroines; magic, romance, and adventure; deep emotion mixed with a dash of offbeat humor - all of these make up Kyra Halland's worlds. She loves sharing those worlds with readers and hopes they will enjoy her stories and characters as much as she does.
Kyra Halland lives in southern Arizona. She has a very patient husband, two less-patient cats, two young adult sons, a lovely daughter-in-law, and an adorable granddaughter. Besides writing, she enjoys scrapbooking and anime, and she wants to be a crazy cat lady when she grows up.